I really enjoy this writer; I hie right over there anytime I see she has something new up. I loved that this story was told from Rodney's POV; Rodney's voice, his impressions, the way everything is filtered through his perceptions worked really well for me. His feeling that Atlantis loved John and missed him, for instance--something that's started to bug me a little, fanon-wise, in stories I read lately--worked for me, here, because it's Rodney who thinks it, and it may be real or imagined, but he thinks it's true and he's peeved about it and I like that. I love John through Rodney's eyes, how beautiful he is and how distant and unreadable, because I get to enjoy his description of John both literally and emotionally, through Rodney's reactions. (And beach-boy John, while very humina at any angle, becomes even more so as seen through Rodney.) Rodney's wanting to know what happened amplifies my own curiosity; I really, really wanted to know, for Rodney's sake as well as my own. It's not unique, seeing things from Rodney's POV in a story, but I felt she used the POV especially well.
This story made me want things, which I found very cool. I wanted to know what happened, why John left, to a greater degree than I might have expected; it was a "couldn't put it down" experience for me, too. I wanted them to get together physically, and I wanted even more for the rift between them to be mended, in a deeply achy way, because Rodney wanted it so much. I also wanted something I'm not sure I got; I wanted them to have had a romantic, or at least deeply friendly/physical, relationship in Atlantis, before John left; I wanted that to be part of what John walked away from, part of why Rodney was so hurt, and why he didn't give up looking. The less shallow CC is aware that deep friendship is every bit as important and compelling as sex, but, well. The shallow CC usually wins out. I'm not sure, here, that that's what happened, but I like to think so. She did a great job with that, pulling me in, making me want. I love that in a story.
In that vein, I also wanted certain things in connection with the big finish, the reason for John's leaving, and those things I didn't get. I did like Rodney's breakdown and how that contributed to his wanting John back, and I liked John's nobility in leaving, but I wasn't really happy with the reason. It felt a little pat, or fanonish, and too much out of John's control--maybe too deus ex machina? Not sure, but it didn't sit right with me. It had to be something that would make John have to resign his commission, but something that wouldn't prohibit him from coming back as a civilian, and there had to be an element of sacrifice there to keep me on his side, and she provided that, but I would have preferred something different, something, say, like John not really having recovered emotionally from his near-bugging, not completely, and something happening that set him off, something that he felt he failed at in an important way, that showed he was unsuitable, in his (unreliable) opinion, to command, that he was a danger to the mission and to the people who were depending on him. I'd have liked him to have cracked, I think, and for it to have taken him this long to pull his head together over it, again. Maybe combined with some political pressure, too, those outside forces leaning on Elizabeth and on him, and he finally broke under those, under all of it together. I actually thought, from some cues I found in the story, that that was where we were headed and was disappointed when that's not how it turned out. But that wasn't enough to spoil the story for me, and, not knowing what you know, the secrecy issue wasn't, either. It was a very satisfying story, with a happily-ever-after that allowed them to be together in Atlantis with no more military/DADT issues, which was a nice change. Overall, I liked it a lot.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2005-11-03 10:08 am (UTC)This story made me want things, which I found very cool. I wanted to know what happened, why John left, to a greater degree than I might have expected; it was a "couldn't put it down" experience for me, too. I wanted them to get together physically, and I wanted even more for the rift between them to be mended, in a deeply achy way, because Rodney wanted it so much. I also wanted something I'm not sure I got; I wanted them to have had a romantic, or at least deeply friendly/physical, relationship in Atlantis, before John left; I wanted that to be part of what John walked away from, part of why Rodney was so hurt, and why he didn't give up looking. The less shallow CC is aware that deep friendship is every bit as important and compelling as sex, but, well. The shallow CC usually wins out. I'm not sure, here, that that's what happened, but I like to think so. She did a great job with that, pulling me in, making me want. I love that in a story.
In that vein, I also wanted certain things in connection with the big finish, the reason for John's leaving, and those things I didn't get. I did like Rodney's breakdown and how that contributed to his wanting John back, and I liked John's nobility in leaving, but I wasn't really happy with the reason. It felt a little pat, or fanonish, and too much out of John's control--maybe too deus ex machina? Not sure, but it didn't sit right with me. It had to be something that would make John have to resign his commission, but something that wouldn't prohibit him from coming back as a civilian, and there had to be an element of sacrifice there to keep me on his side, and she provided that, but I would have preferred something different, something, say, like John not really having recovered emotionally from his near-bugging, not completely, and something happening that set him off, something that he felt he failed at in an important way, that showed he was unsuitable, in his (unreliable) opinion, to command, that he was a danger to the mission and to the people who were depending on him. I'd have liked him to have cracked, I think, and for it to have taken him this long to pull his head together over it, again. Maybe combined with some political pressure, too, those outside forces leaning on Elizabeth and on him, and he finally broke under those, under all of it together. I actually thought, from some cues I found in the story, that that was where we were headed and was disappointed when that's not how it turned out. But that wasn't enough to spoil the story for me, and, not knowing what you know, the secrecy issue wasn't, either. It was a very satisfying story, with a happily-ever-after that allowed them to be together in Atlantis with no more military/DADT issues, which was a nice change. Overall, I liked it a lot.